xTRIZ: Systematic Innovation, TRIZ, Collaboration

Intermediair on TRIZ

2010-09-06T17:40:00.000+02:00

The latest issue of Dutch weekly magazine Intermediair from September 2, 2010 published an article on TRIZ based on the interviews with me and J. Stevens. The article is in Dutch. The full text of the article is available at the following link:

http://www.intermediair.nl/epaper/2010/35/#/32/

TRIZ and Systematic Innovation Training for Fall 2010

2010-08-31T10:50:00.000+02:00

The following public courses will be conducted in the Netherlands in Fall of 2010:

TRIZ for Technology and Engineering:

3-day Basic TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Technology and Engineering. September 15-17, 2010, Utrecht, Netherlands
5-day Advanced TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Technology and Engineering. November 15-19, 2010, Utrecht, Netherlands

TRIZ for Business and Management:

One-day Introduction to TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Business and Management. September 1, 2010, Utrecht, Netherlands
4-day Extended TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Business and Management. October 12-15, 2010, Utrecht, Netherlands

Systematic Creative Imagination Development (TRIZ-based)

One-day Techniques of Systematic Creative Imagination Development (for all areas). December 1, 2010, Utrecht, Netherlands

For more information, details and registration please visit http://www.xtriz.com/Training/

TRIZ Café on November 11, 2009: Full of Energy

2009-11-15T18:54:00.031+01:00

On Wednesday, November 11, 2009 we had another meeting of TRIZ Café at the hotel “Eindhoven”, at the outskirts of the city of Eindhoven. Since a primary goal of our TRIZ Cafe meetings is to bring together people who are interested in TRIZ to get to know each other and share knowledge and ideas, we did not have a fixed pre-set agenda except starting and finishing times and some presentation titles, and thus preferred to make our decisions “on the fly” depending on wishes of the participants.

In total, there were 20 participants representing 16 different organizations, including Delta Electronics, Evonik Colortrends, Sioux Embedded Systems, Stork Food Systems, Oce Technologies, Sensata, TNO Science and Industry, University of Twente, and smaller companies. There were more people on the list, but not everyone could make it.

In the beginning of presentations

Koen Arends (Stork Food Systems), Han de Ronde (Delta Electronics), Peter Vollard (Tedac)

After starting and 13:00 and spending approximately two hours for coffee/tea, meetings, talks, and introductions, we switched to the presentations prepared by the participants. First, I made a presentation about a link between TRIZ and Creative Imagination Development (CID). Although CID used to be a very important part of TRIZ education during the “Altshuller’s TRIZ era”, lately it has been paid less attention due to a general demand within industry for “fast learning”. But how are we going to solve complex creative problems without creativity? Thus I presented my vision of how CID techniques could be coupled with principles of “power innovative thinking”, and how these techniques could boost and develop further our innovative thinking skills and enhance the use of TRIZ methods and tools.

Valeri Souchkov (me) presenting TRIZ and CID

Next, Guido Giebens (Antrim, Antwerp) presented a board game “ANTRI3” which his company developed on the basis of TRIZ. The game uses many TRIZ concepts (such as IFR, Su-Field Modeling, etc. ) and is used to enhance creative teamwork during innovative projects. An idea of a TRIZ-based game is not new, but it was quite inspirational to see how a strategic approach to “walking towards a solution” was implemented by combining fun and “serious TRIZ”.

Guido Giebens (Antrim) presents TRIZ Game

Next, we decided to switch from presentations to something new, which we called “Express TRIZ Case”. In short, it is one-hour exercise on solving a real problem which is brought to the session by one of the participating organizations. During the session, all other TRIZ Cafe participants take part as well – and it does not matter if they are TRIZ newcomers or TRIZ professionals. One of the prerequisites of such exercise is that no one (except a problem owner) knows in advance what a problem will be.

We selected a problem brought by Stork Food Systems which was related to food processing industry. Of course, one hour is too short to go through the entire TRIZ process, but nevertheless we managed to use Root Conflict Analysis to quickly decompose the problem to underlying contradictions, and then inventive principles, Ideal Final Results, Modeling with Miniature Dwarfs, and inventive standards to propose a number of new innovative solution concepts. Unfortunately, we cannot tell more to general public about the problem and solutions found since all participants agreed for confidentiality – and as Koen Arends, Innovation Manager of Stork Food Systems said after the session, one or two ideas generated were of a high potential to be patented and implemented.

During "TRIZ Case Express Session": Thomas Dekker (Stork Food Systems)

I personally liked this session since it demonstrated the power of TRIZ to attack complex problems in fast and efficient way if we follow a predefined TRIZ process and let everyone present in the room to be involved. Although in the very beginning of the session, after formulation of the problem there were some attempts of brainstorming and directly jumping to solutions, it became very quickly clear that we actually, were jumping to a dead end. Therefore we had to stop it and drive audience along the TRIZ process – and it worked. As expected, most effective solution ideas emerged after we defined a core physical contradiction, operational zone and operational time (which one would never do without TRIZ). As one of participants from Stork Food Systems noted, that during the first 15 minutes of generating ideas with TRIZ, we reproduced one of the ideas to find which Stork spent three years (without TRIZ). Thus it was a clear demonstration how TRIZ could drastically help accelerating a process of finding high-quality inventive ideas.

After a short break, we continued with presentations. Dr. Wessel Wits (University of Twente, Enschede) presented a program and results of our two-week “full immersion” TRIZ Summer Course which was introduced this summer at the University of Twente. He also demonstrated some examples of problems which students were solving during the course and some new ideas of solutions found by the students (and the TRIZ Cafe audience really liked these examples). The course was quite successful and students rated it rather high comparing to similar courses. Wessel also announced the next course which will take part in the last week of June-first week of July of 2010. We plan to make this course open so if anyone is interested in joining, please let me know.

Wessel Wits (University of Twente)

And the last presentation of the day was made by Albert van der Kuij, business development and standards engineer from Sensata, Almelo. He shared his experience gathered during last 5 years of application TRIZ within the company focusing on how TRIZ can be embedded to projects, and focused on the links between Six Sigma, QFD and TRIZ. He also proposed his vision of how QFD, FMEA, TRIZ and Six Sigma’s DMADV process can be used at each step of new product development: from ideas conception to product supply.

Albert van der Kuij (Sensata)

In fact, we had more presentations on the list, but it was already after 20:00 – time to close our sessions. Therefore we postponed them to our next meeting, which will take place in early 2010. In the meantime we plan to use the LinkedIn group “Dutch TRIZ Community” for communication.

As a conclusion, I believe that our second TRIZ Café was a good step towards strengthening and expanding our TRIZ network. Modern TRIZ is not an easy subject to learn and use so we all need such meetings to share our knowledge and experiences, to get to know about new TRIZ developments and tools, especially from practical point of view. What I really liked was to see how enthusiastic and energized people felt during the meeting. I hope these energy and enthusiasm will stay with us and grow further.

Videos of presentations from the TRIZ Café will be shortly made available together with corresponding powerpoint slides. I will post to this blog and make announcement as soon as they are ready.

More photos from the event are available at http://www.xtriz.com/img/TRIZCafe_November2009/

I’d like to thank everyone who made our second TRIZ Café possible and hope to see you next time!

Our coffee machine. It had a very strange behaviour: all of a sudden it started to work and produce high-pitched noise... when no one was around. Definitely, an "ideal" coffee machine.

New Articles on Thinking Skills

2009-10-26T19:09:00.007+01:00

It has been a while since I posted to this blog. Anyway, just to keep you updated, there are two my articles published this month which belong to the category of what I call "Power Innovative Thinking".

The first article published by the Altshuller Institute:

Power Thinking Skills for Innovative Leadership

And the second article by the Real Innovation:

Fantogramma: a Technique for New Fantasy Ideas

Both articles deal with the ways we think. The first article focuses on highligting certain differences between "regular" and "innovative" thinking. It is important to note that I do not mean that "regular" thinking skills which I mention in the article are bad and have to be replaced by "innovative" thinking skills. Both types of thinking are needed. What I want to stress on is that usually our innovative thinking skills are underdeveloped, and if we want to learn how to become creative and innovative leaders, we should understand what the differences are and how we can practically develop these appropriate skills.

The second article presents one of the techniques developed by Genrich Altshuller to help moving out of the box when generating new fantasy ideas. But again, it is very important that this technique is not only for fantasy or science-fiction authors: it can be practiced by everyone who is willing to develop his or her creative imagination. I also teach Fantogramma as a part of my training course on Creative Imagination Development.

Please send me your comments if any, I am open to discuss both articles to move further.

Video: TRIZ Today

2009-07-28T14:55:00.004+02:00

A one-hour video recording of my presentation "TRIZ Today" is available. This presentation was given during TRIZ Cafe meeting on June 17, 2009, in Amersfoort. This presentation focuses on explaining what modern TRIZ is. To see the video, please follow the link:

http://www.xtriz.com/trizcafe/trizcafevideo.htm

The video file should start playing automatically. If there are problems with viewing the video, a a stand-alone mpeg-4 file is also available for download at the same page as well as slides used in the presentation.

"TRIZ Fundamentals" course finalized

2009-07-28T13:55:00.012+02:00

Last week the first part of the course "TRIZ Fundamentals" at the University of Twente was finalized. It included 80 hours of studying the TRIZ theory and practicing with modern and classical TRIZ tools. But in fact, it took more than 80 hours: since students spent their afternoons each day working on the assignments, it took them more time than was planned for some assignments - sometimes I received e-mails with questions from students around 22:00. It was probably my fault: I underestimated time needed for practical work since I used to work with professional audience - people who had experience with working under tight time constraints.

However looking at the results of the course, I feel very good. I'd say each assignment (in total, there were 9 different assignments for each group of students) was done quite well with nice presentations. And overall, each student evaluated the quality and usefullness of the course either "high" or "very high". It was my first experience of conducting such a lengthy course at the university; and frankly, such high marks were above my expectations.

Among the topics which students liked the most, were Root-Conflict Analysis, Inventive Principles, Inventive Standards. Almost everyone mentioned them in final evaluation sheets. Although all the students managed quite well with ARIZ, they found it less attractive (except the method of Miniature Dwarfs or Little Men). It is understandable: ARIZ requires long time of "playing" with different problem formulations and this process gets fuzzy sometimes, especially if a problem does not fit exactly the ARIZ format since the very beginning.

Students present results with ARIZ

During the next phase starting this fall, students will use knowledge they acquired to help with real-life innovative projects at companies: either solving a problem which requires an inventive solution, or participating in innovative product development with the use of TRIZ.

TRIZ Summer Course at Twente University

2009-07-06T23:06:00.012+02:00

Today I've started a new offical course on TRIZ Fundamentals and Practical Applications at the University of Twente. The course is for B.Sc and M.Sc students of engineering and technical disciplines and has a new format: it is a two-week summer course (80) hours with later extension in autumn (additional 40) hours. Thus the course provides 5 credits for students in total (if they are successful, of course). Each day is split to two parts: lectures and practical assignments. Every morning, each group of students (3 persons per group) will present the results obtained during practical work a previous day. Both Tom Vaneker and Wessel Wits will assist me during the course.

The program includes general approach to modern innovation, TRIZ foundations, Ideality, Multi-Screen Thinking, Resources, Models and Trends of Technology Evolution, RCA+, Function Analysis and Trimming, Inventive Principles and Inventive Standards, Value-Conflict Mapping, ARIZ, Creative Imagination techniques and development of innovative thinking skills, evaluation techniques, aspects of TRIZ use and implementation, integration of TRIZ with other methods.

During the first day

Student present results of practical assignments

TRIZ Café on June 17, 2009: Summary

2009-06-18T23:22:00.010+02:00

In our highly dynamic and connected world, it seems to be a matter of top priority to stay connected. Especially it applies to those who are involved to innovation. During my 15 years of stay in the Netherlands, I have had numerous contacts with people who have interest in innovation and TRIZ, and many of them became users of TRIZ and some of them are even my "virtual" colleagues who help us to develop TRIZ further. However most of them do not know about each other. So our primary intention behind launching the Dutch TRIZ network was to bring people together.

Although we run in the past so-called "TRIZ days" here in Holland, their goal was mostly informative: to present TRIZ to newcomers. With TRIZ Cafe we are introducing another format: the TRIZ Cafe should become a place where everyone interested in TRIZ (even those who never worked with TRIZ) can meet in "real life" and exchange their experiences and stories. The idea of TRIZ Cafe is to create a meeting place of the Dutch TRIZ network. Definitely, the Dutch TRIZ network should stay open to anyone who is willing to join. It is not meant to be a "customer club", etc. - it is going to be an inspirational place for people interested in TRIZ. Why Dutch then? Because while living in a small country, we can enjoy meeting each other and work together without the necessity to travel too far, and that’s why we expect most of people visiting TRIZ Cafe will be from the Netherlands and surrounding countries.

About the event. After we had sent its announcement, about 60 people were interested in participating. However by the time of the event we had 15 people on the list. And at the day of the event we had 10 persons in the room representing different organizations: both technology and business. Well, as they say, "small but beautiful". I think it was a good number to start with because everyone could follow the same discussions and provide contribution.

Thus our first meeting took place on June 17, 2009, at the Hotel Golden Tulip in Amersfoort. A quiet and a nice location in woods within a couple of minutes of drive from a highway. During the first hour the participants talked to each other and enjoyed coffee and tea (it was supposed to be TRIZ Cafe!). Then I made a presentation labelled "TRIZ and Systematic Innovation Today". Instead of a standard introduction to TRIZ, I tried to show how TRIZ was originated, how it evolved, and what it is today. I also tried to show that today's TRIZ is not only limited to technological inventions, but can be quite effectively used in a business area as well. The presentation took about one hour. It was taped on video and soon I will provide you with a link where you can watch it. I guess it will be especially interesting to those who missed the event.

After a break we started "free-format" presentations by the participants. Dr. Wessel Wits, associate professor of the University of Twente (www.utwente.nl), presented a story about teaching TRIZ at the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Design of the university and TRIZ-related work done by students within their M.Sc. projects. If so far TRIZ was introduced as a part of other courses, this year TRIZ will be introduced as a full 80 hours (with 40 hours of practice extension) course for B.Sc and M.Sc students. The university also plans to extend cooperation with local industries regarding TRIZ.

Next, Jan Gerritsen, Innovation Manager at GEA Grenco BV (www.geagrenco.nl), presented how innovation is being understood and implemented at his company. His presentation was very interesting and at the same time challenging. It caused many questions from the participants and the discussions, especially put from the TRIZ point of view, were very inspiring. As a result, we plan to create a "TRIZ Cafe task force" which will study how TRIZ can help GEA Grenco to boost and accelerate innovation.

Time was flowing fast, and soon we discovered that it was a moment to close the "formal part" of the informal event. At the end by the request of the participants I gave a brief overview of tools we currently use within the "xTRIZ" framework.

The evening ended up in the hotel's lounge with drinks and a dinner.

Summarizing, I really enjoyed the event, and especially the enthusiasm expressed by the participants. Even although some of them were new to TRIZ, they participated very actively and lively in all discussions. The result of the meeting was a decision to launch a LinkedIn group of the “Dutch TRIZ community” as a platform for virtual communication between our meetings. Thus if anyone is interested in joining, please check this LinkedIn group.

We have not decided yet when the next TRIZ Cafe will take place. Most likely it will be in October-November 2009. We will discuss it in the meantime and announce as soon as possible.

I would like to thank everyone once again who joined the meeting, and I am sure we gave a good start to further networking and cooperation.

There are some more photos from the event:

http://www.xtriz.com/img/TRIZCafe_June2009

Introducing xTRIZ in Jordan and the Middle East

2009-06-18T22:30:00.018+02:00

Last couple of months were pretty busy with travel and all kinds of activities leaving too little time to write about my thoughts, news and events.

My first visit to Amman, Jordan was in April 2008, where I run a 3-day public training for 25 representatives of Jordanian enterprises. I was quite surprised by the level of TRIZ awareness in the country and by a real drive of people to innovate. After that event, three more public training courses in Jordan followed up. Based on the success of these workshops, this year the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (http://www.qrce.org/) in cooperation with ICG T&C decided to establish "TRIZMatic" institute to further promote TRIZ, xTRIZ and Systematic Innovation in the region.

Graduating the participants of the training course in TRIZ, xTRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Business and Management in cooperation with QRCE on May 2-4, 2009.

On May 5, 2009, the Royal Scientific Society of Jordan (RSS, http://www.rss.gov.jo/) and QRCE conducted a one day conference on Systematic Innovation, where I presented a keyonote talk on TRIZ as well as two more specific talks on applications of TRIZ in technology and business areas. The event was visited by over 100 people.

During the conference: Prof. Abdullah F. Dwairi of Jordan University of Science and Technology talks about impact of TRIZ on product development

I am very thankful to Basel Kilany, Hussein Natsheh and Mohd Khawaja from QRCE, who excellently organized my latest trip to Amman (and all other trips as well!). And also my special thanks to HRH Princess Sumaya Bint El-Hassan and HRH Prince El Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan who take promotion of TRIZ and Systematic Innovation in the country very seriosuly.

Right to left: me, HRH Princess Sumaya Bint El-Hassan , HRH Prince El Hassan Bin Talal.

TRIZ Café

2009-04-28T16:42:00.002+02:00

Would you like to learn about the latest TRIZ and xTRIZ tools and updates? To meet other TRIZ and Systematic Innovation professionals, practitioners and enthusiasts? To discuss and share your ideas and experiences about TRIZ and Systematic Innovation in informal environment? Or to learn what TRIZ is and how it can be used? If you live or stay in the Netherlands or nearby, then you might like to visit our "TRIZ Café" event.

We plan to hold our next meeting on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, from 14:00 till 19:00. The exact location will be defined as soon as we know how many participants and from where will visit the event. The meeting will involve both presentations by the participants and free-format discussions.

The cost of participation is Euro 50,- (excluding 19% VAT/BTW). It includes coffee/tea, refreshments, additional materials.

For more details: http://www.xtriz.com/trizcafe.htm

Additional TRIZ courses in Spring 2009

2009-04-28T16:30:00.007+02:00

By request, I will run several additional public courses in May-June 2009:

May 2-4, 2009, TRIZ-based Systematic Innovation for Business and Management in Amman, Jordan (organized by Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship)
May 18-22, 2009, Advanced TRIZ for Technology and Engineering in Utrecht, Netherlands
June 2-5, 2009: Extended TRIZ-based Systematic Innovation for Business and Management, Utrecht, Netherlands
June 23-25, 2009, TRIZ-based Systematic Innovation for Business and Management in Athens, Greece (organized by ECO-Q Magazine).

Details are available at www.xtriz.com/Training

Of course, if anyone would like to meet me if you are there at the same dates, just let me know.

Innovation Sources and Triggers

2009-04-24T11:39:00.005+02:00

During my lectures and courses on TRIZ and Innovation, I am often asked, "What are main triggers which push people to innovate?". Thus I have tried to categorize main categories of such triggers for technical innovations:

Accidents - Many new inventions were created on the basis of unexpected discoveries, made both in science and technology. For instance, x-rays, penicillin, microwave oven, vulcanized rubber, even potato chips resulted from accidents.

Analogy - Many inventions resulted from observing nature and copying its principles. Leonardo da Vinci drew his flying machines and ships by copying nature. Composite materials, building structures emerged from observing natural systems. George de Mestrel invented Velcro fastener by studying why seeds of burdock kept sticking to his clothes and his dog's fur. Today such disciplines as biomimicry and biomimetics study principles of nature and copy them for technology use. Analogy is also often used by inventors to copy and transfer principles from one technical area to another one.

Problems caused by negative and harmful effects - probably, the broadest trigger of innovations. We do not want anything to fail or behave incorrectly so we improve things. We do not want car accidents so we improve cars, roads, even traffic rules. Very often we can only achieve a necessary improvement through innovation. Chassis of heavy planes would not be possible without carbon-reinforced materials; refrigeration of food prevents it from degradation. Think about ultrasonic distance sensors for car parking, non-breaking glass, traffic jams detecting and predicting systems, and so forth.

Performance barriers - they are created by the limits of principles of existing products and technologies. To break these limits, we need to invent a new product or a technology based on a new principle. A horse cannot run faster than 70 km/h, but a car can. The car can't run faster than 300 km/h, but a plane can. A wooden pointer cannot be longer than 1 meter (it can, but it will be useless), but a laser pen can project light much further. Computer memory in microchips has much higher capacity than memory based on vacuum tubes.

Hidden demands - there are plenty of them! Someone can be the first to recognize that a demand exist and respond by creating new products and technologies. Often new demands emerge as a result of demographic, cultural, social changes or introduction of new products to the market which create new needs. One of the common innovation practices today is to observe customers behaviour and identify functions which can be delivered by new or improved products.

Technology Diversification - when a known technology or a product (or its principle) is used in a new context, or a new market. For instance, when the first laser was invented it was thought to be used in spectroscopy only. Today lasers are used in a very broad range of applications. A computer has existed for a long time as a computational device, today it is a primary tool of communication, gaming device, music recording, and so forth.

Trends of Technology Evolution - they exist (check TRIZ). Many seemingly different technologies and products evolve in similar ways. For instance, one of such patterns is evolution of the degree of dynamics by segmenting an existing system or a product to several connected parts. Such pattern applies to situations when we have our product to be small and big at different times. For instance, a mobile phone: we want a large screen, convenient large buttons and at the same time the phone should be small to provide portability. A solution is a sliding phone, or a flip-flop phone. Now think about travel bag which we can make bigger by unzipping its part, telescopic rod for an umbrella, foldable bicycle, foldable tourist tent, foldable camping table, etc.

Scientific research, especially material research - today a major source of hi-tech innovations. Without it microelectronics would have not existed, and neither advanced materials like polymers, fine chemicals, new construction materials, new and more effective medicines, etc.

Cost-effectiveness - we always want more value for lower costs, and costs depend not only on production scale or using cheaper solutions which decrease quality. Innovations help to cut costs while preserving quality and performance or even increasing them. Many ICT innovations emerge from this source. Online meeting systems cut costs for travel. Other examples are voice communication via the Internet, plastics which are stronger but cheaper than steel, disposable mobile phones, reusable plastic bottles, and so forth.

Market competition – we should not forget this important trigger. Often there are no clearly visible problems or performance barriers related to our product or a system, but we know we must innovate to stay competitive. Probably, competition is a kind of meta-trigger which leads to the use of all above-mentioned triggers.

TRIZ Future 2009 in Romania

2009-03-18T16:08:00.003+01:00

As was decided during the latest edition of TRIZ Future conference, the next edition of the conference will be conducted in Timisoara, Romania, on November 4-6, 2009. Recently the conference organizers announced the official conference website:

http://www.eng.upt.ro/trizfuture2009/

The website provides further information and the first call for papers. Authors who are willing to submit papers should note that the deadline for abstracts is April 1, 2009.

Detailed Report on TRIZ Future 2008

2009-03-18T15:59:00.002+01:00

Prof. Toru Nakagawa has recently published his personal report on the conference TRIZ Future 2008 which took place in November 2008 in the Netherlands. The report is available at his website, TRIZ Home in Japan by following this link.

As usual, the report is very detailed and comprehensive and I'd like to thank Toru once again for another great effort he did!

TRIZ Intro Short Course, January 14, 2009 in Utrecht

2008-12-17T16:39:00.004+01:00

When you are every day involved to TRIZ and Innovation, it is not easy to imagine that there are still too many people who never heard of TRIZ, or those who heard but vaguely know what a contemporary TRIZ is. Therefore I scheduled an evening introduction course to modern TRIZ on January 14, in Utrecht, Netherlands. This short course will take place from 16:00 till 20:00, and provide not only an overview of TRIZ but also a hands-on experience to get a feeling how TRIZ works.

More details are available at:

http://www.xtriz.com/Training/evening_introduction.htm

TRIZ and Systematic Innovation Training in Spring 2009

2008-12-04T10:39:00.009+01:00

I have just (once again!) adjusted the agenda of my public training and certification courses in Spring 2009. Please keep the following dates in mind in case you wish to join some of the courses:

TRIZ for Business and Management:

February 5-7: 3-day course, Bangalore, India
March 20: one-day introductory course, Utrecht, Netherlands
May 4-7: 4-day extended course, Utrecht, Netherlands

TRIZ for Technology and Engineering:

April 1-3: 3-day basic course, Utrecht, Netherlands
May 18-22: 5-day advanced course, Utrecht, Netherlands

General Systematic Creativity and Problem Solving:

March 2-6, OTSM-TRIZ to Develop Power Thinking (with N. Khomenko), Limassol, Cyprus
June 12: Creative Imagination Development, Utrecht, The Netherlands
June 19: Root Conflict Analysis (RCA+), Utrecht, The Netherlands

More information about the courses and registration: http://www.xtriz.com/Training/

TRIZ Future 2008

2008-12-04T01:46:00.014+01:00

Finally, after a quite intensive November filled with travel and training courses, I have some time to write few lines about the TRIZ Future 2008 Conference.

This year's edition of the conference in Enschede gathered around 90 participants from 20 countries including China, Japan, Korea, US. The number of people was slightly less in the previous year in Frankfurt, however in my opinion, quality of presented papers was quite high. It also has to do with the fact that this year we applied a set of stricter criteria to the paper selection and edition process. It probably reduced the number of participants, but I personally learned a number of very interesting things.

As usual, a daily report from the conference is available in the online TRIZ Journal, prepared by the Journal editor, Ellen Domb:

TRIZ Future 2008 Day 1

TRIZ Future 2008 Day 2

TRIZ Future 2008 Day 3

We also hope that as always, Toru Nakagawa will publish a very detailed report on the conference, including review of presented papers.

The atmosphere during the conference was very warm and friendly. After 8 years of conducting the event, we already have a "core group" of those who visit each edition of the conference. It is great to meet each year, discuss last year events and share new ideas. A team of organizers from the Department of Design, Production and Management of the University of Twente did a great job to ensure the highest quality of the event. I am very thankful to them. And especially pleasant surprise was a conference dinner in a village restaurant "Hanninkshof", which featured wonderful gourmet meals and selection of beautiful wines.

What was a little bit frustrating, although the conference was conducted in the Netherlands, not much of Dutch industry visited the conference. I am curious what were the reasons - current economic crisis, or reducing interest in the front-end of innovation? Or too many innovation-related events this year? At the same time I talk to (and work with) many people from the Dutch industry and business, and most of them are very much interested in TRIZ and use it. One of the reasons was, probably that the conference was "too academic", most of papers were from universities. We have to think how to boost industrial participance at future conferences.

Some highlights from the conference:

Opening by Gaetano Cascini, ETRIA president.

During paper presentations

During my tutorial on TRIZ for Business and Management

Keynote talk by Harry Rutten, DSM

During conference dinner

A larger image gallery is available at http://etria.net/img/TFC2008/

Thanks everyone for making the conference success!

Next year edition of the conference will be held in October-November 2009 in Timiosara, Romania. Details will be posted soon at http://www.etria.net/.

A Personal Record and Crisis (Not Personal)

2008-11-03T19:42:00.016+01:00

This fall I seem to set up a personal record on a number of people I trained in TRIZ. Since September 8 till October 31 (during 7 weeks) I trained about 230 people in TRIZ at different levels: from very basic (8 hours) to advanced (40-60 hours). This figure includes both university students and professionals from a dozen of countries. Feel a bit tired, but must confess: very happy.

So will it help those who were trained dealing with a "financial crisis" we all hear about today? The answer seem to be rather obvious. The more we can, the better we cope. Basically, TRIZ is about how to deal in critical situations. Any breakthrough innovation results from a situation when trade-offs don't work any more but we need a radical, out-of-the-box solution. Another issue is that we used to think about innovation just as bringing new products to the market. But what about process innovations? Supply chain innovations? Cost cutting innovations? We can innovate to drastically cut costs, for instance. Usually we think that once we cut costs, we also decrease produced value. It sounds quite logical, however it is not true. The entire TRIZ philosophy (if we learn TRIZ well) drives us towards creating "ideal" solutions: producing maximum value at virtually no costs. And in many cases it is possible.

I observe two types of organizations today: those who are under a current panic of crisis freeze their training budgets and those which do not. However, those who freeze represent the vast majority. Luckily there is another type of companies: which release their budgets to better train peope. Which strategy is right? There is a simple analogy. If a national soccer team loses against stronger competitors during the World Cup - does it mean that the team has to cut costs, kick out all strong players (who are expensive) and avoid hiring a good coach (because the team certainly experiences crisis)? I think everyone will laugh at such decision and stop supporting such a team if it does so. That's why it is still a great mistery to me why so many boards of organizations are unable to connect productivity, performance, and ability to stay in business with capabilities and skills of people who work for them.

TRIZ Future 2008 next week!

2008-10-29T22:20:00.003+01:00

Are there TRIZ enthusiasts or those who would be interested in learning more about TRIZ? There is a great chance to meet international TRIZ community next week.

On November 5-7 we conduct the international conference TRIZ Future 2008 in Enschede, The Netherlands hosted by the University of Twente. Although the conference will last 3 days, there is also a possibility to register for the first day only, which will include basic TRIZ tutorials, keynotes, opening, and two tracks with case studies (registration for this day costs Euro 250,-). We expect around 100 people from 20-25 countries.

I will run a tutorial on TRIZ for Business and Management in the morning (from 09:00 till 12:00).

More details on the conference and registration are available at http://www.trizfuture.net/ . To see a detailed schedule of paper presentations, visit section "Downloads".

Social Innovation: How to Manage Work/Life Balance?

2008-09-02T11:07:00.009+02:00

Last Friday, I took part in a very inspiring informal event: “UnConference”, organized by friends of mine Ton Zijlstra and Elmine Wijnia at the Twente University terrain as a part of Elmine’s birthday celebration. It was visited by a group of enthusiastic people from different countries interested in how networked world changes our life.

One of the questions posted was how to manage work/life balance properly? We run a series of small workshops in the “Knowledge Café” format, and I hosted one of the workplaces. Here I’d like to share our findings.

Pretty soon we found that definition of a border between work and personal/leisure parts of life had been very fuzzy. All people are different: for some their work is the only true meaning of their lives, but some prefer less time spent for work and more dedicated to families and leisure activities. To better understand this border we choose the Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs and reformulated the question: “What prevents us from feeling happy about managing our work/personal life balance?”, where personal life can mean anything but work.

In most cases, working provides us with a means to fulfil our needs. But our work becomes a part of our identity, too. Its role is minimal when our needs reside only at the lower levels of the Maslows's pyramid (to secure our basic living needs), but grows exponentially when we move up to the higher levels of the needs hierarchy (levels of esteem and self-actualization). By following the TRIZ philosophy of a fuzzy situation analysis, we tried to formulate a list of contradictions which prevent us from keeping our work/personal life balance totally perfect – that is, just as we want it to feel happy because for everyone this balance can be individual.

A majority of people whose work interests are not limited to their pay checks face a fundamental contradiction: either to stay at the lower levels of the Maslow’s hierarchy to ensure stability and security or to move up to the higher levels to realize their dreams, especially when people are young and full of energy. However without strong financial independence that would mean putting ourselves as well as our families at risk. What would (probably) reduce this risk is a total commitment and full immersion to our work. However, that would also mean reducing time for any other activities.

Furthermore, we decided to outline contradictions which are experienced and treated by each participant as most important and which have to be resolved to properly manage work/personal life balance:

We want to live in a small quiet town which is good for our kids and work in a big city, but commuting takes of a lot of time.
We want to dedicate more time to our kids, but then we would not accomplish our careers as desired.
We want to be entrepreneurs to realize our goals and dreams, but full commitment to our jobs will unlikely leave enough time for our families and leisure activities.
A "perfect" vacation demands considerable time to truly disconnect from thoughts about our jobs, and such long vacations are good for our families. But are such long breaks good for our jobs, especially in modern, highly dynamic work environments when everything changes too fast?
Perfectionism versus getting things done: trying to accomplish things in the most perfect way we sacrifice time for either other tasks or personal life.
Mobile workplace versus stable workplace: being highly mobile we tend to spend more time for long-distance travel thus leaving too little time to spend with our families.
We need to learn more and more every day but still need to secure enough time for doing our jobs and personal things.
A desire to do many interesting things in parallel; but to really accomplish something we must focus on one-two major tasks only.
Every day we need to process more and more information which leaves less time for other activities.
Individualism to focus and concentrate versus the need to feel and be a part of a larger social group.
Quantity versus efficiency: in most cases employees are paid for hours, not for results. Thus we need to spend more time at work to ensure proper income than it might be really needed .
Working from home: we stay close to our families but physically remote from our social work environments ("missing a water cooler" syndrome).
"Work ecosystem" versus "home ecosystem": we often tend to give a preference of one rather than another due to many factors: attitude, comfort, etc. and thus even subconsciously tend to spend more time within that ecosystem.

It looks like most of these contradictions focus on two critical elements: time and space. We can neither expand time nor to be in two places at once. How do the participants see the ways out? There were some ideas:

Matching work with meaning of your life.
Finding a partner with a similar state of mind.
Creating a family business.
Splitting work between being employed for several days a week and then self-employed for the rest of the week.
Working from home only partly.
Always staying connected with your family via the Internet.

Given a limited time we did not elaborate ideas further. It is clear that these already known solutions solve just a part of a bigger problem. By asking the participants if they were happy with their current work/personal life balance, only a half of them responded positively. Which means that 50% of people are not happy – isn’t that an indication of another real problem in our society? What can be new radical innovations that would help people to feel happy with managing their work/personal life balance? Here we need to challenge known mental models of “working” which create psychological barriers preventing us from thinking out of the box: offices, cubicles, meetings, billing for hours and not for results, relations between working time and real productivity, and so forth. A very interesting area worth to explore!

Creativity World Forum in Antwerpen

2008-09-01T16:33:00.011+02:00

The summer break is over, and it's time to get back to autumn innovation. My agenda looks quite full for the coming months with a number of countries to visit, which means that the interest in creativity and innovation is still there!

Just wanted to note that on November 19-20, 2008, the next edition of the Creativity World Forum will take place in Antwerpen, Belgium. The Forum is organized by the Flemmish Organization for Entrepreneurial Creativity and will feature such keynote speakers as Steve Wozniak, Dan Heath, Chris Anderson, Tom Kelly, John Cleese.

This event is defenitiely worth to visit. I plan to be there, too.

TRIZ Future 2008: List of Abstracts

2008-07-15T14:38:00.008+02:00

The list of 58 abstracts provisionally accepted for the conference TRIZ Future 2008 (Nov. 5-7, 2008, Enschede, The Netherlands) is available at:
http://etria.net/portal/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58&Itemid=38
as well as at the official conference website http://www.trizfuture.net/ .

This year we decided to split the conference papers and posters to four tracks: scientific, educational, practitioner, and case studies. Seems like there are enough interesting papers to be presented in each section.

A final list of accepted papers and posters will be available in the second half of September.

May 2008 TRIZ and Systematic Innovation Newsletter

2008-06-09T14:22:00.004+02:00

Our latest newsletter from May 2008 (in PDF format) was uploaded to:
http://www.xtriz.com/newsletter/newsletterICGTCMay2008.pdf

The issue contains latest news, references to intersting links on TRIZ and innovation, recommended new books, and description of one of the principles of creative innovation: "Continuity".

Matrix 2003: German Edition

2008-06-09T14:00:00.005+02:00

A friend and a TRIZ colleague of mine from Germany, Horst Nahler, recently updated me that they published a German translation of the book "Matrix 2003" by D. Mann, S. Dewulf, B. Zlotin, A. Zusman (originally the book was published in English in 2003). The book introduces an extension to the original Contradiction Matrix developed by G. Altshuller which still remains today one of the most popular TRIZ technqies for beginners. The book costs 30 Euro and is available from:

http://www.c4pi.de/index.php?page=1899844505&f=1&i=1899844505

A Brief History of TRIZ

2008-05-20T19:13:00.001+02:00

As follows from my experience, anyone who starts seriously studying TRIZ and Systematic Innovation, sooner or later starts wondering about a history of TRIZ. Why there are so many tools, what followed what? I constantly get these questions from my "students". Since there was no TRIZ timeline yet presented in English, I wrote an article "A Brief History of TRIZ" which summarizes major steps in the development of TRIZ and Systematic Innovation. The article is freely available at http://www.xtriz.com/publications.htm (top left corner).

In case if someone notices inconsistencies, please let me know.

TRIZ & Systematic Innovation Training: Fall 2008

2008-05-14T14:03:00.009+02:00

New dates for training courses in TRIZ and Systematic Innovation, Fall 2008 are available:

One-day Introduction to TRIZ for Business and Management, September 3, 2008, Utrecht, The Netherlands
5-day Extended TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Business and Management, September 22-26, 2008, Utrecht, The Netherlands
3-day Basic Training in TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Technology and Engineering, October 6-8, 2008, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
2-day Workshop "OTSM-TRIZ for Kids" (for teachers and parents), October 23-24, 2008, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (workshop leader: Nikolai Khomenko)
One-day Creative Imagination Development (for all areas), October 31, 2008,
Utrecht, The Netherlands
2-day Root Conflict Analysis (RCA+) (for all areas), December 2-3, 2008,
Utrecht, The Netherlands
5-day Advanced TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Technology and Engineering, December 8-12, 2008, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

This fall a new course is announced: Root Conflict Analysis (RCA+). Although the RCA+ technique was introduced relatively recently (in 2004), more that 200 projects were already successfully performed with it; thus this new new 2-day course focuses on practical applications of RCA+ for those who is interested in in-depth study of how to use the technique. RCA+ can be used both in combination with TRIZ and independently.

Also, based on the success of the first workshop "OTSM-TRIZ for Kids", we announced the next workshop to be held in October. The content of the workshop remains the same, therefore those who missed the first workshop have an opportinity to join us in October.

We also introduced discounts for early registration.

More detailed information about the courses is available at http://www.xtriz.com/Training/

OTSM-TRIZ for Kids: Summary

2008-04-22T11:11:00.003+02:00

Below is a summary and evaluation of the workshop "Using "Yes-No" Game and Riddles for Teaching OTSM-TRIZ and Various Regular School Subjects", conducted by Nikolai Khomenko in The Hague, 20-21 March 2008. This text was written by one of the workshop participants, Arjanne Boerendans. She kindly permitted to post her text to this blog. Many thanks, Arjanne!

After an introduction to Classical TRIZ and OTSM-TRIZ, Nikolai explained the basic concepts of OTSM-TRIZ in an educational context.

In “normal” life, the usual problem solving strategy is based on trial and error. However, this has a catastrophic effect on the way we solve problems, because it is very time consuming.
As we want a single solution (not many!) in the shortest possible time, we underestimate the amount of time it takes to find a satisfactory solution.

Instead, it is important to clearly frame the starting point, in terms of (system) environment, people, goals and constraints. Once the AS-IS situation is defined and shared among people, using problem solving tools is much more effective and solutions brighter.

In other words what we have to do is to become aware of our own psychological inertia and overcome its limits.

The problem solving process requires imagination; it involves specific knowledge and analytic and synthetic skills simultaneously with creative imagination and holistic approach; it is considered as a transformation of an initial situation into the description of a satisfactory solution. When facing a problem – when you don't understand something - it is not important to think about why things happen the way they do, but how. Thus, the challenge is to think of a way how to produce it. You have to learn how to pay attention to both details and the generalised level: zoom in, zoom out.

Education should be organised as a research game and team work. Additionnally, social activity takes place during communication. In the educational domain there are many applications of OTSM-TRIZ, not only for children, but for adults as well. Kids have almost no experience they can reuse and this can be a pro. Adults have to go through two steps: (a) remove mental inertia and (b) define the right “solution space” to investigate possible solutions.

The main goal of OTSM/TRIZ for KIDS is to provide kids with some hints and tips they can easily understand to narrow the space where the solution is, so that their search can be much quicker and more effective.

After the theory, it was time for PRACTICE.

We did some exercises to practice these abstractions in a very concrete way. The “Yes/No” game is the most powerful as well as easy game to play to develop the ability of thinking dichotomy. It stimulates people to ask questions that reduce the possibilities by half thus enabling them to find the solution much faster than by just guessing. Whether you play the game with numbers 1-10 in a linear game or with objects anywhere in the universe is of no importance. It depends on the kid’s age and capacities. Other games that have been practiced are riddles and story lines. It involves a lot of imagination, language etc.

The training has been a very good step after the introduction to the ideas of OTSM-TRIZ for Kids in November 2007. The participants have lots of ideas for the next steps in order to achieve the most desirable result: the availability of OTSM-TRIZ for every person.

Arjanne Boerendans

OTSM-TRIZ for Kids: Learning Power Thinking

2008-03-24T16:29:00.026+01:00

Last Thursday and Friday, we run a workshop "TRIZ for Kids" led by Nikolai Khomenko in The Hague. The workshop was targeted at parents and teachers interested in incorporating OTSM-TRIZ components to improve kids education. It was certainly an inspirational event. Nikolai has been involved to developing educational programs on the basis of OTSM-TRIZ for kids during last 20 years, and certainly two days were just barely enough to cover some parts of the programs. For those who never met the term before, "OTSM" is a Russian abbreviation which stands for the "General Theory of Power Thinking" developed by Nikolai together with Genrich Altshuller, a founder of TRIZ. However unlike TRIZ, OTSM is not restricted to specific areas like technology or business since it targets at studying and uncovering a generic process of creative and innovative thinking regardless any specific area.

First, Nikolai introduced OTSM-TRIZ approach to kids education and developing thinking skills. The remaining and the largest part of the workshop was dedicated to interactive sessions on the basis of "Yes-No" games: teaching how to play the games (finding right answers as quickly as possible) using OTSM-TRIZ to ask right questions. This approach is based on several techniques: "thinking dichotomy" to narrow a possible search space; learning how to make "abstract-specific" thinking transitions to reformulate situations; and recognizing contradictions to construct exact questions. We also explored different types of "Yes-No" games, and a method for creating our own games. All the participants were enthusiastically involved to the process. Needless to say, they found that the method is not only useful for kids, and even if it can be played with kids of age as early as 3-4, we all can benefit from it.

The workshop was followed by a discussion how the material learned can be put to local educational systems and what next steps can be undertaken. We are really looking forward to new workshops in the nearest future.

Nikolai Khomenko explains the basics

During sessions

During creative breaks

Kids were with us, too.

March 2008 TRIZ Newsletter

2008-03-19T13:41:00.002+01:00

Our March 2008 TRIZ and Systematic Innovation newsletter is available at
http://www.xtriz.com/newsletter/newsletterICGTCMarch2008.pdf

In the newsletter: forthcoming courses and conferences, interesting links, recommended books, and the "principle of integration", one of 29 principles for creative innovation.

Great Example of Using Resources

2008-02-13T23:54:00.005+01:00

A nice illustration of the TRIZ way of thinking! Although I am not sure TRIZ was known to authors of the idea of "PlayPump", but the idea is a very good illustration of several basic TRIZ concepts. First, ideality: how to achieve the desired results with as little as possible expenses? Second, use of resources. There is always a plenty resources around. A smart use of resources helps to find new, non-ordinary solutions which can considerably simplify a task and solve it in a very cost-effective way. Third - good solutions should always provide "win-win". Everyone wins, no one suffers. And no compromises!

In some developing countries, especially, in Africa, one of the most crucial problems is a clean water supply. Still, there is water - but deep underground. To install and operate a standard water pump would be too expensive. What to do? It is clear that we need energy. Is there are any cheap, or, preferably free energy resource available nearby?

"PlayPump" solves this problem in a very unusual way. Resource: kids. No, no kids labor in this case. That would be the worst and inacceptable solution. Instead - let kids play and pump water! The "PlayPump" is a water pump which is connected to a merry-go-round which serves as an engine for the pump. Kids play and water flows. Check this video from National Geographics:

TRIZ Future 2007 Conference Overview

2008-02-11T09:09:00.000+01:00

For those who are interested in TRIZ developments, Toru Nakagawa, Professor of Osaka Gakun University in Japan, prepared a detailed overview of papers and presentations from the latest TRIZ conference "TRIZ Future 2007" which took place in Frankfurt last year. The overview is richly illustrated by images from paper presentations.

The report is freely available at TRIZ Home Page in Japan. There is also a PDF version at the bottom of the page.

TRIZ and Systematic Innovation Training: Spring 2008

2007-12-06T14:55:00.002+01:00

New dates for training in TRIZ and Systematic Innovation are announced for Spring 2008:

One-day Introduction to TRIZ for Business and Management: January 19, 2008: Utrecht, The Netherlands
One-day Introduction to TRIZ for Technology and Engineering: February 22, 2008: Utrecht, The Netherlands
One-day Creative Imagination Development (for all areas): April 11, 2008: Utrecht, The Netherlands
5-day Extended TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Business and Management: April 14-18, 2008: Utrecht, The Netherlands
5-day Advanced TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Technology and Engineering: May 26-30, 2008: Arnhem, The Netherlands

We will also organize a new experimental 2-day training workshop "TRIZ for Kids" for teachers and parents who are interested in learning practical techniques which help kids develop "power" thinking skills. The workshop will be run by Nikolai Khomenko on March 20-21, 2008 in The Hague.

More information: http://www.xtriz.com/

TRIZ Future 2008 in Enschede, The Netherlands

2007-12-06T14:50:00.000+01:00

The next ETRIA Conference TRIZ Future 2008 will be conducted on November 5-7, 2008 in Enschede, The Netherlands at the terrain of the University of Twente. More details are available at http://www.etria.net/ and http://www.trizfuture.net/

TRIZ Future 2007 in Frankfurt: Short Report

2007-12-06T14:17:00.002+01:00

The 7th Global Conference TRIZ Future 2007, organized jointly by ETRIA, European TRIZ Zentrum, Chamber of Commerce of Kassel and Technical University of Munich, was holding on November 6-8 in Frankfurt am Main. 140 participants arrived to the conference. The conference opened with two tutorials: on Technology Forecast by Dmitry Koucheriavy and Advanced TRIZ by Nikolai Khomenko (both Graduate School of Science and Technology in Strasbourg). The conference featured 4 keynote talks: by Lucienne Blessing (University of Luxembourg), Guillaume Vendroux (Alstom Transport, France), Vincent Bontemps (Commissariat à l'énergie Atomique, France), and Greg Yezerski (Institute of Professional Innovators, USA). 44 papers, selected for presentation, were divided to two sections: scientific and practitioner.

The conference produced very nice impression, thanks to the efforts of its organizers and the participants. Being a founding member of ETRIA, I am personally very happy that each edition
of the TRIZ Future conference gains more and more worldwide audience and recognition.
Although the quality of papers was varying, overall the majority of papers either provided the
participants with new valuable information or triggered some further thoughts. It was also
interesting to observe that TRIZ is getting accepted broader on a corporate scale: David W.
Conley (Intel, USA) informed audience that approximately 1.000 Intel specialists took basic
TRIZ training, Robert Adunka (Siemens, Germany) presented a corporate training program in
TRIZ which is currently under deployment at Siemens.

A surprise was prepared by the organizers just prior to the conference dinner: a one hour
show at which two artists demonstrated how to teach physics in a new way: by showing
physical effects “alive” in a very funny and enjoyable manner. I doubt I will ever forget any of
the effects presented!

The conference ended with 2-hour ETRIA members meeting, a summary of which will soon be
posted to the ETRIA website (http://www.etria.net/). One of the important notes was that in general, TRIZ is known today at the level of the 1980s despite its recent progress. Certain efforts should be undertaken to make the worldwide TRIZ community familiar with current trends in TRIZ and bring an overview of TRIZ advances.

Summarizing, the conference had a high degree of quality of integrity, was very energizing, and became an excellent place for networking and communication.

As usual, Ellen Domb, the editor of the Online TRIZ Journal, provided live blogging from the
conference. You can read more about each conference day:

The conference proceedings are available in electronic form for ETRIA members for free at
http://www.etria.net/ in the membership section. A published version is available at Amazon.de

Photos from the conference: http://etria.net/img/TFC2007/

THINKING SKILLS FOR INNOVATION

2007-09-28T22:51:00.000+02:00

In the past, we could invent something once and enjoy benefits till the rest of our lives. Time has changed. Today we need to continously stay innovative - which means we need to possess “power” thinking skills to be able to constantly come up with new winning ideas. But what are the differences between “regular” and “power” thinking skills? Due to nature of my work, I have had a unique chance to meet many great people: outstanding thinkers, inventors and innovators from different areas: technology, business, arts. Below I would like to summarize these differences, based on many years of observations.

1. Multi-Screen Thinking vs. Spot Thinking

Usually when we attempt to solve a problem, we tend to focus on a very narrow spot where the problem takes place. As a result we limit ourselves to considering only those components that immediately form the problem. However looking at the problem from the viewpoint of its relationships with a rest of a system where the problem has arisen helps identifying much broader scope of opportunities, better understand the roots of the problem, and identify different strategies of solving a problem. Thus we should see the problem as a part of a bigger system and also recognize how our solution will impact the future of a system and its environment. When we want to innovatively improve a certain system – technical, business, etc., - it also makes sense too look to the past to find out what changes the system experienced and what were drivers of these changes. Seeing a problem or a system under a different angle also helps to recognize different types of solutions and evolution directions. (“Multi-Screen Diagram of Thinking” is one of the key TRIZ components, also known as “System operator”, or “9 Windows”.)

2. Abstract Thinking vs. Specific Thinking

Specific thinking forces us to stay at the level of details within a scope of known to us solutions and concepts and try to adapt them to our problem. As a result, we either stuck or come up with small incremental improvements. Abstract thinking helps to migrate problem solving to a new level and fight mental inertia which is brought by mental images formed by specific information and details. It also helps to recognize analogies in totally different areas. Say the word “wall” and we usually imagine a wall of a house made of bricks or stones. But the wall can be also a waterfall, a steam flow, a light lock… By saying the word “company” we immediately start imagining an office filled with people and desks while a company can be virtual, with home-based employees, etc. Abstraction furthermore helps to recognize links among seemingly unrelated objects and events and come up with totally different concepts.

3. Breakthrough Thinking vs. Trade-off Thinking

TRIZ states that emergence of contradictions is a major driving force of evolution of technological systems, and resolving contradictions by their elimination instead of trading-off helps achieve a major qualitative jump in evolution of a system. Apparently this is valid for many other types of man-made systems. For instance, during evolution, business, social, and political systems experience numerous contradictions as well. However when we face contradictions, our mind tends to soften conflicting demands and search for a compromise instead of targeting at breakthrough solutions that would completely eliminate contradictions. Contradictions remain unsolved - but unsolved contradictions tend to deepen over the time. Early recognition of contradictions and resolving them is one of the most important features of “power” thinking.

4. Intensification Thinking vs. Sheltered Thinking

We are often afraid to think outside of known concepts and ideas. But all breakthroughs happen only when we overcome barriers set up by our mental inertia. To break these barriers, it helps to intensify given tasks, conditions, or requirements. Often we need to intensify them to such a degree that they seem to be “impossible”. For instance, we want to develop a new concept of a mobile phone. How small it can be? We can start thinking about usual length of the mobile phone – around 10 cm. So shall it be 6 cm? Too little! Imagine that the phone’s length should be 1 cm, or, better, 1 mm. It is clear that a concept of the mobile phone should become totally different. Or we want to have a screen on a mobile phone which completely fills our field of sight. It is also clear that we should think about totally different screen: probably, a projected screen, or screen mounted in glasses, etc. By pushing existing limits far beyond we increase our chances to come up with radically new solutions.

5. Non-linear Thinking vs. Linear Thinking

It is known that about 80-90% of long-term forecasts made by even very renowned futurists appear to be wrong. A common mistake which is often made is focusing on extrapolating existing trends without recognition of radical changes which are not possible to predict. The same with problem solving: staying within a frame of known concepts and relationships it is not possible to recognize non-linear connections. Non-linear thinking also helps to bring together things that are not related today but can be linked in the future and produce a great impact on technology and society, such as was, for instance, development of a personal computer.

6. Diversity Thinking vs. Uniformity Thinking

Breakthrough innovations are almost always based on outside knowledge. Thus it was not surprising that I noticed that one common thing among great inventors and thinkers I was lucky to meet has been their “hunger for knowledge”. And what is important, all these people do not limit themselves to a single specific area of interest: as a rule, they consume a lot of information from totally different areas. A library of Voltaire who lived in the 18th century counted 6.814 books, more than 2.000 of which had his handwritten remarks. A library of Thomas Edison consisted of 10.000 books. A friend of mine, who invented a disruptive technology for chemical industry, has also a library of 10.000 of scientific and technical books, and he read most of them. Diversity helps to both see solutions in other areas and create unique experience which helps to recognize patterns between seemingly totally unrelated things.

7. Structured Thinking vs. Random Thinking

We often think that to solve a “big” problem in a creative way we must “unlearn and unstructure” as much is possible. True, because it helps us to fight mental inertia. But as noted by G. Altshuller, unlearning and unstructuring work well when we solve problems of low degree of difficulty that do not require numerous trials to find a solution. Once in a lifetime we can be lucky. But when we constantly facing problems of high degree of complexity, we must structure the problem solving process. We must have a roadmap how to navigate from a problem to its solution, reuse previous experience, and patterns of strong solutions. Does it kill creativity? Not at all. In ancient Rome, the mathematical operation of division was considered to be an art and was based on heuristic rules. Today this operation is fully automated and nobody seem to suffer from that. Bringing structure to support creative processes does not mean replacing creativity with formal procedures: creative imagination remains of great importance to find a final solution. But we can drastically save time and efforts by structuring the process and thus avoiding unnecessary errors which often cost billions of euros and dozens of years. Most important is that a structured and well-defined process is repetitive.

8. Ideality Thinking vs. Consumption Thinking

Once I was involved to helping a customer who had a problem with a robot which was not properly adapted to do a job, and as a result there was persistent loss of a product. The customer contacted the robot’s manufacturer who proposed to upgrade the robot within several months by adding new electronics and precision mechanics, but such solution would cost the customer around Euro 500k. A bit too expensive, but there seemed to be little choice. However by formulating an “Ideal Final Result” concept we were able to solve the problem within one hour and our solution was implemented next day: we only used resources which were available directly in the customer’s manufacturing process. Result: no product loss any more. Ideality is an extremely powerful concept which forces us to recognize already available resources to achieve what we want. Such resources are everywhere – and smart thinkers might achieve extraordinary results by recognizing and using them.

9. “Ultimate Goal” Thinking vs. Shallow Thinking

Goals are everything. Goals predetermine our results, our intentions, and our strategies. If we set up a wrong goal, we are going to fail; if we set up a weak goal, we will get weak results. I remember that several years ago I read a cover article in Time magazine, where the author was exploring a progress in cancer research. His conclusion was that most of research in the US was focusing on decreasing tumor sizes rather than on completely eradicating the tumors… But does reducing the tumors mean their elimination? Not necessary at all. In TRIZ, G. Altshuller introduced a concept of an “Ultimate Goal”: let us set up goals which do not seem to be achievable today: for instance to reach the stars, to eliminate hunger,.. Probably, we will not achieve them even during our lifetime, but the progress made would be considerably greater than defining weak goals in the very beginning.

10. Evolutionary Thinking vs. Trials and Errors Thinking

Before TRIZ, the vast majority of innovations were made by trials and errors. TRIZ uncovered laws and trends of men-made systems evolution, and knowledge of these trends is essential to define what to create next without blind guesses. For instance, we know that a specific system in the beginning of its evolution might tend to increase the degree of dynamics by breaking to parts and introducing flexible links between the parts; but when the system moves over a certain point of its evolution, a number of parts and the overall degree of the system’s dynamics tends to decrease.

11. Long-term Thinking vs. Short-term Thinking

Quick fixes or investments to the future? Ok, in some cases quick fixes are necessary and justifiable, but when our thinking is only limited to quick fixes we might be drowned in them. One day it might become clear that quick fixes do not work any longer but we do not have neither enough time nor physical resources to avoid a disaster. Thus quick fixes might be ok only if they are balanced by proper investments to long-term goals.

12. Wild Thinking vs. Down to Earth Thinking

This is where a role of creative imagination becomes crucial. In his book “The Psychology of Creativity” published in 1896, French psychologist Theodule Ribot mentioned that we reach a peak of our creative imagination in the age of 12-14, and then it gradually drops. When we are young, we play games in which we invent new fantastic characters, explore space, etc. and thus we boost and develop our creative imagination skills: in these games, no one demands us to stay within the borders of “reason”. Thus we push borders and relax our mental constraints. When we grow older, we sink in the world of reason and even might be punished for “crazy” thinking. But there is no other way: moving “out of the box” demands crushing mental barriers. Luckily, creative imagination is not magic; everyone possesses it and can further develop it.

And finally - I strongly believe that most important contribution of G. Altshuller and TRIZ was not a toolbox introduced to support creative phases of innovation, but that it was revealed how “power” thinking can be learned and developed.

Innovation and TRIZ: 5 Levels of Solutions

2007-07-03T09:38:00.001+02:00

The July issue of the TRIZ Journal has published my article "Differentiating Among the Five Levels of Solutions". I wrote this article to introduce a new classification which is based on using "function/principle/market" differentiation to categorize all kinds of solutions rather than on creativity only as originally proposed by the originator of TRIZ G. Altshuller. A full text of the article is available at http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/2007/07/02/

The Risk of Customer-Driven Innovation

2007-06-22T20:00:00.000+02:00

In his article, Tony Ulwick, CEO and founder of Strategyn and author of What Customers Want discusses a number of reasons why capturing and using the voice of a customer to create breakthrough innovations can be ineffective. Instead of capturing the customer demands, he proposes to study, dissect, and understand "customer's jobs" in detail. The approach of Strategyn is based on understanding "a job which is being done by a customer" rather than focusing on specific parameters and features of products or services delivered to the customer.

Full article is available at http://www.mycustomer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=133066&d=345

I completely agree with this point of view. Customers can't envision what they can't envision. Listening to a voice of a customer might be great to produce incremental innovation and slightly win over competition in red ocean, but coming up with radical or disruptive innovation to create blue ocean we need another type of knowledge and another approach. In some cases we even need to completely distract ourselves from the existing products and services to overcome mental inertia and see things differently.

In addition, Strategyn uses TRIZ to enhance their innovation consulting. There are some video clips including a short description of TRIZ by Tony Ulwick. But I want to add that modern TRIZ is used much broader than for solving "mechanical" problems only.

Creative Problem Solving: Four Types of Thinking

2007-06-07T23:32:00.000+02:00

Being involved for a long time as a TRIZ trainer and facilitator, I’ve had a great chance to meet many different creative personalities. This certainly enriched my life, and I also noticed that there are two major dimensions along which a creative thought is developed, regardless if people use TRIZ or not: a) from specific to abstract and b) from chaotic to structured. Of course, there are no clear borders between different types of thinking and there can not be, but we can clearly see dominance of one or another type of thinking. What does this mean? Below I try to explain this concept by illustrating it with the following problem: I am a very slow coffee drinker, which means that coffee in my cup gets cold too quick and its taste degrades. What can be done? Now, to four type of thinking dominance in creative problem solving:

Chaotic and Specific: we try to solve a problem by simply guessing what a solution can be. This is the trials and errors method in its full extent. Might be good for problems of low-level difficulty but how many trials we should make to solve problems of high levels of difficulty? This is like playing in a casino. We have a chance, but its probability is low. So what are we going to do to have our coffee warm as long as possible? We might quickly jump to solutions without much analytical thinking: for instance, put a lid on a cup, insert a radioactive element to the cup which will warm up coffee, or simply stop drinking coffee to avoid experiencing discomfort…

Specific and Abstract: We use guidance by the methods which help us to diverge to break mental inertia or associate our problem with some already known solution but residing in a different area. For instance, we might use lateral thinking, or we might have to search for analogy. I noticed that outstanding inventors read a lot of different literature and have ability which I call “hunger for knowledge”. This “hunger” helps to establish an analogy between seemingly unrelated things. By visiting houses of such inventors I was always impressed by sizes and diversity of their libraries: from history of theater to quantum mechanics. Do you know that Voltaire (1694-1788) had a library of over 6.000 books? He was not just a bibliophile; his handwritten comments can be found in more than 2.000 books. A library of Thomas Edison counted 10.000 books. Now, how do we apply analogy to our coffee problem? To keep meals warm, Chinese use a pad with a flame. Why not to use a flame pad for warming up coffee? Or, similarly to arctic igloos which use ice blocks for thermal insulation, we can put a floating foam-plastic pad with a hole for drinking on the surface of coffee; or to make a cup from porous thick material with a drinking hole. Solving problems by analogy is a very powerful method, but how to find a right analogy? This might be troublesome.

Specific and Structured: this is where logical thinking comes to play. We use logic to analyze why a problem is happening, what causes the problem; and assume that the deeper we understand the problem, the higher chance we will have to solve it. This won’t necessarily provide us with solutions (although it many situations it will) but at least give us a better insight to what forms the problem. This way of thinking is often attributed to scientific approach: first, understand the problem and then solve it. But what to do if understanding of the problem’s causes does not give us insight on what a solution can be? Still, understanding the problem is very important. Example: At this level we try to understand why coffee gets cold. Why? Because it has a contact with air which has much lower temperature. Thus there is heat and mass transfer which goes too fast in order to establish a thermodynamic balance. So the question will be how to slow down the heat transfer? Probably, by warming the air, and so forth.

Abstract and Structured: This is where we not only use logic to understand the roots of a problem but also use universal abstract patterns which can solve the problem. This is the most effective way to solve creative problems. But what are these abstract patterns? In my opinion, they are aggregation of many different analogies, which we can observe in technology, biology, social life. They are exactly what Altshuller and TRIZ researches have identified by studying vast massive of creative and innovative solutions. Altshuller also noted that outstanding inventors use 5-7 patterns which they discover due their lifetime. Example: Let us use a pattern which is known in TRIZ as “inventive standard 1-2-2: If there is a harmful effect of interaction of two objects, then introduce another object between them, which is a modification of either of the objects”. Modification can be seen in a broad sense: it can be a different phase state, physical state, chemical state… Why not to use foamed coffee, for instance? If we make a nice foam layer of coffee on top of liquid coffee (crema), it will have low thermal conductivity and prevent coffee from getting cold too fast. My espresso coffee machine uses exactly this solution, and I am happy with it. Advantage of TRIZ is that it identified many such abstract patterns: inventive principles, inventive standards, patterns of system evolution. It is impossible to say that TRIZ has a comprehensive set of patterns, but its set of patterns helps to solve many difficult problems.

This diagram also shows evolution of human thinking: from chaotic and specific to abstract and structured. I often hear that to come up with creative ideas, we need to unstructure our thinking. I can’t completely agree with that. We need to unstructure our thinking only when we do not have a more powerful method of thinking. But combining analytical logic and knowledge of universal patterns of solutions, we get much stronger instrument for solving creative problems.

xTRIZ May 2007 Newsletter is Available

2007-05-24T14:30:00.001+02:00

May 2007 Newsletter is available. It presents new dates for Fall 2007 training in TRIZ, Sysematic Innovation, Creative Imagination Development, as well as information about forthcoming TRIZ conferences, new interesting books, and collection of links.

The newsleeter is available at http://xtriz.com/newsletter/newsletter052007.htm

Success of Creative Imagination Development

2007-05-05T14:40:00.000+02:00

Last Friday (April 27) I started a new series of training workshops by running a public course on Systematic Creative Imagination Development. It was the first public course of such kind given in English (at least to my knowledge) and it seems like it was a serious success: the audience was extremely enthusiastic during the course, and I received many exciting follow-ups. Although the course was based on the ideas Genrich Altshuller originally developed for Creative Imagination Development courses, it was considerably "updated" to incorporate elements of "power thinking", and the exercises were oriented at real tasks rather than a "free flight" imagination. For instance, a final exercise was to develop a scenario of a creative advertisement for a real business presented by each group of participants. The exercise included all what the participants learned during the day: principles of power thinking, associative search, elimination of contradictions, multi-screen system thinking, creative design principles. Although most of audience was not much familiar with TRIZ before the course, I was surprised how seemingly difficult concepts of "structured" creative thinking were quickly accepted and applied.

For those who missed the course, the next date is August 31, 2007, in Utrecht, Netherlands. The number of participants is limited, therefore it is important to register in time.

Overview: TRIZ for Business and Management

2007-04-09T16:41:00.000+02:00

As I mentioned several times in my previous posts, the borders of TRIZ applications are not limited to technology only. The way TRIZ delas with problems and supports creativity are universal since its principles are based on the understanding the dialectics of evolution of man-made systems. I have just uploaded a white paper "Breakthrough Thinking with TRIZ for Business and Management" which gives an overview of how TRIZ is currently applied within business and management areas.

http://www.xtriz.com/TRIZforBusinessAndManagement.pdf

It is 20 pages long, so I hope you have enough patience to read through it. Amy comments are welcome.

TRIZ Future Conference in Frankfurt, November 2007

2007-03-26T17:59:00.000+02:00

The next forthcoming ETRIA Conference "TRIZ Future 2007" will be different from previous: it will be conducted in partnership with the European TRIZ Centrum, which used to hold "European TRIZ Congress" in the past. A scientific host of the conference will be Technical University of Munich. As usual, the conference will have two tracks: academic and industrial. I'll take part in the Industrial Review Committee.

The conference will be conducted on November 6-8, 2007 at Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Frankfurt. More information is availabe in the Announcement Brochure and www.triz-network.de

Those who are willing to submit a paper should hurry, a deadline for abstracts is March 30. See you at the conference!

TRIZ Case Studies Book: new abstracts are welcome

2007-03-23T14:06:00.000+01:00

During last several month, our "multi-continental" editorial board received a number of abstracts presenting various cases of using TRIZ to solve problems or to develop new products. However, about 40% of received abstracts presented not-implemented ideas of solutions, while in the original call for papers we requested to submit only those cases which were implemented and proven to be successful.

Therefore we made a decision to extend a deadline for submitting abstracts till April 10, 2007. If someone who reads my blog has an interesting and implemented case and would like to write a paper to contribute to the future book, please contact me asap.

An updated Call for Papers with extended deadlines is available at http://www.xtriz.com/TRIZCaseStudiesCallForPapers.pdf

Advanced TRIZ and Systematic Innovation Training

2007-03-05T12:06:00.000+01:00

For those who might be interested, this spring I will conduct two advanced courses in TRIZ and Systematic Innovation:

Click on the courses to get more information. Both courses will be conducted in the area of Utrecht, The Netherlands, close to Amsterdam.

In addition: One-day introductory course for TRIZ for Business and Management will be conducted at April 13, 2007, also in Utrecht.

What Innovations Bring Most Value to Customers?

2007-02-15T23:02:00.000+01:00

It seems like an answer to this question is pretty straightforward: those innovative solutions (products, services, platforms) which better satisfy customer needs create more value. But what needs and what value? And how to create these solutions?

In 1943, Abraham Maslow proposed Hierarchy of Human Needs, which separates between five different levels of human needs. But by looking at all solutions which exist in a marketplace, I personally tend to distinguish between 4 major categories of needs where innovation takes place (in the figure below, their importance runs clockwise):

- Basic Personal (food, healthcare, housing, security, learning, transportation, etc.)
- Work (need for money, self-actualization, satisfaction, prosperity, wealth, etc.)
- Social (communication, socializing, learning, sex, family, etc.)
- Entertainment (relaxation, joy, fun, etc.)

Today, borders between these categories are getting fuzzier in developed countries. Work can co-exist with fun and joy. A basic need for food can co-exist with socalizing and entertainment: some people prefer gourmet meals in cozy restaurants rather than consuming fast food. Playing Sims combines socializing and entertainment. Listening music helps to entertain and relax. Playing tennis helps to entertain and stay in good health.

There are endless solutions for each category of needs, and many cross the borders of each other. But by looking at these categories, it becomes obvious that most winning solutions are those which cover ALL categories of needs. For instance, even an old-fashioned "wired" phone can be used for:

- Emergency calls (Basic Personal)
- Talking to friends (Social)
- Discussing budgets during travelling (Work)
- Ordering music on interactive TV channels (Entertainment).

The same is valid for a personal car, PC, and a large variety of other products. And not just for products, but for services too: for instance, personal coaching can help to improve someone’s life in all four categories. Gaming industry evolves in this direction as well. Look at computer games. Civilization has overgrown from bringing personal entertainment to become a useful tool on world history in urban learning. If Sims helps to entertain, discuss basic personal needs, and socialize, then Second Life adds business (working) aspect to the game. This is why Second Life is getting more and more popular. I had not bought an mp3 player before podcasts started to emerge on the Internet: it is great to learn something new from podcasts during long trips, and then relax by listening to music. A single device satisfies my needs for entertainment and work. In fact, I did not buy an mp3 player: my mobile phone equipped with 4 Gb Sony SD card does all needed jobs perfectly. It shows movies too, but iPhone promises to do it even better.

So, the secret number one is simple: if you want to create a really winning solution on large scale, create something that targets all four categories of needs. But probably this is not an eye-opener. Another question arises: how to create it?

Here TRIZ helps. We already have a car, a PC, a mobile phone. How to think about something really new, or at least, how to radically improve these existing solutions? Not so difficult. TRIZ philosophy says that really new solutions result from overcoming contradictions which were created by old solutions. For instance, once I had to give 5 different phone numbers so people could reach me in any location. And still, they were unable to reach me when I was on a trip. I always faced this contradiction – when arriving to a new destination, I needed to send my new number to… how many people? But I did not have time for that. If I would spend time for calling to everyone to inform about my new number, then I would not have time to do my job. And vice versa. A contradiction which was resolved by a mobile phone.

We can look at any of the existing solutions and identify what contradictions are still caused by it or its use. Not just slightly improve the convenience of use, but solve a real contradiction. For instance, back in 1997 a CTO of a company producing traditional (“wired”) phones told me that almost no one in the world would need a mobile phone except some top executives and traveling sales people. I thought: really? But one of my basic personal needs is to call emergency on case something happens no matter where I am – and this applies to everyone! In 1999, a top manager of one of the world leading company producing photo cameras told me that digital photography was doomed… Really? I was already fed up with endless film rolls, prints, and the necessity to go to a store each time to bring my films for processing, and paying each time quite a lot of money since I liked to use quality films and quality photo paper. Looking at the costs side, I calculated that owning a digital camera for one thousand euros will be paid off just within 2-3 years. And probably the cost factor was not the most appealing: the most important to me was a contradiction that I was not in the control of the quality of the prints I used to get from the store and I did not have time to do the prints myself. Another imprortant factor was that I knew that quality of digital cameras would improve immensely pretty soon – there were no physical barriers to that. The time has shown who was right.

So, the secret number 2: find contradictions, define new goals and resolve the contradictions. And create new winning solutions.

In fact, that’s all. The rest depends on your capabilities.

Root Conflict Analysis and TRIZ

2007-02-13T14:17:00.000+01:00

Our recent paper presented at ETRIA TFC 2007 "Application of RCA+ to Solve Business Problems" has been re-published by the TRIZ Journal:
http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/2007/02/06/

The article shows how RCA+ (Root Conflict Analysis) is used to identify and map contradictions in a specific situation, and then resolve the contradictions to generate new ideas with the help of inventive principles. Although the article deals with a business case (in fact, a very similar situation occurred within several projects; therefore the case presented is rather generic), the same methodology works for technology and other areas as well. During last two years I successfully applied RCA+ for about 30 different cases during team work, and each time it helped to clarify a problem and structure the problem solving process. Today we use RCA+ as an analytical tool which provides input for other TRIZ problem-solving and idea generation techniques (Inventive Principles, Inventive Standards, ARIZ).

Course on Creative Imagination Development

2007-01-21T14:14:00.000+01:00

I have just announced a new course on Creative Imagination Development which will take place on April 27, 2007 in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
This course is a bit different from other courses I offer. It does not specifically target on technology or business areas, instead it deals with general development of creative skills. Imagination is an esential part of creative work, and to create interesting and breakthrough ideas we need to use it to its full extent. People with developed creative imagination can better foresee and react to future changes thus staying ahead of others, and easier come up with out-of-the-box ideas.
But can creative imagination be developed? I believe that like any skill, it can. Every person is given an in-born ability to create, and the question is how we use this ability and how we develop it. When I was young I was going for fencing, and it took us two years of training to start fencing properly before we were allowed to compete - these two years were needed to develop fencing skills. The same with all other skills, including creative imagination.
During the course, I will also introduce several techniques to generate out-of-the-box ideas on the basis of developments by Altshuller - "the father" of TRIZ. He and his associates put considerable efforts to understand how we can use our creativity most effectively and boost our creative performance. In fact, Creative Imagination Development was always a part of advanced TRIZ education.
But this is not a TRIZ course, although it incorporates some basic TRIZ ideas like principles of creative change, Ideal Final Result, Contradictions, Multiscreen Thinking. The difference is that they are much quicker to learn and can be used everywhere: from technology to writing and film making.
For those who are interested, the course details are available at:
http://www.xtriz.com/Training/cid.htm

TRIZ: Top 12 questions (part 2)

2006-11-23T12:37:00.000+01:00

7. Is TRIZ a Contradiction Matrix and 40 Inventive Principles?

Only partly. Both Contradiction Matrix and 40 Inventive Principles were developed by the middle of the 1960s. After that time, a number of more sophisticated techniques were developed, like Substance-Field Analysis, Function Analysis, 76 Inventive Standards, Databases of Effects, Algorithm for Solving Inventive Problems (ARIZ), Theory of Technology Evolution, and so forth (For an overview of modern TRIZ components see Annotated List of Key TRIZ Components). There was even a period when the Contradiction Matrix was abanoned from TRIZ, but later in the beginning of 1990s it was brought back due to its easiness of use and ability to provide a good entrance to TRIZ for beginners. While 40 Inventive Principles and Contradiction Matrix still remain the most popular techniques, they represent only a small part of modern TRIZ. And TRIZ is still evolving: the existing techniques are improved and new techniques are introduced.

8. Is TRIZ a technique, a database, a method, a theory?

This is a difficult question. Modern TRIZ is a large body of knowledge, which, in turn, includes several methods and techniques. It has as well some strong theoretical foundations, but as a theory from a philosophical point of view it is incomplete, more studies and research is needed to make TRIZ complete and consistent as a theory. It is better to say that today TRIZ is an evolving science of creativity and innovation which has already been used to build a number of practical and working tools and techniques.

9. I want to buy TRIZ software, is it enough to work with TRIZ?

There is no single software package available on the market which supports all aspects of modern TRIZ. Besides, TRIZ is not just a process or a database, it is combination of logical analysis, knowledge bases of inventive principles, and thinking skills. While some TRIZ software packages provide some good tools for problem and system analysis and databases of principles, they can not replace thinking skills, especially abstract thinking. Although I personally was involved to the development of three TRIZ software packages, I still recommend TRIZ software as tools to provide fast access to the TRIZ databases and support analytical parts of problem solving process only, and to get most of these tools you need to learn and understand how TRIZ works.

10. What is main difference between TRIZ and SIT?

SIT (Systematic Inventive Thinking) or ASIT (Advanced SIT) are methods for creative ideas generation recently developed in Israel. They are often mentioned as being derived from TRIZ and developed to simplify TRIZ and make it easier to learn. But as a matter of fact, TRIZ and SIT are two very different methods and have very little in common. SIT only uses several TRIZ ideas, and while SIT can be learned within a couple of hours, TRIZ mastering requires months and years of skill perfecting. SIT and TRIZ would probably compare as an electronic calculator and a computer: SIT uses a very limited set of idea-triggering concepts, while TRIZ targets at deep understanding of factors driving systems evolution, thorough study of emerging conflicting demands, has extensive databases of invention principles and scientific knowledge. If SIT can help to improve traditional brainstorm, TRIZ can be used to solve most complex problems in systematic way and provide scientifically based forecast of next product and services generations. This of course does not limit the ability of SIT to help with generating great ideas (since ideas and solutions are produced by people anyway), but with TRIZ the idea generation and problem solving processes are brought to the next level.

11. Can anyone learn and use TRIZ?

With enough patience, open mind, and commitment, yes. I have not yet met a person who would not be able to learn and use TRIZ. However, learning technological TRIZ requires some basic engineering background. In addition to technological TRIZ, there are other versions of TRIZ, and one of them even targets at teaching the TRIZ way of thinking to kids starting at the age of 3 (with fairy tales, puzzles, drawings, etc). A project “Jonathan Livingston” in the countries of the former USSR unites 10.000 teachers who introduced this method in their schools. Rececntly a book "Thoughtivity for kids" was published which summarized their experiences.

12. How TRIZ can be implemented in my organization?

First of all, an organization should have or move towards establishing an innovative culture and be willing to invest time and effort to properly learn and introduce TRIZ. If there is no innovative atmosphere at the organization, nothing will help – neither TRIZ, SIT, nor Lateral Thinking. Usually TRIZ is implemented as a pyramid-like model with three-four competence layers: a cross-functional group of TRIZ professionals headed by a TRIZ leader provides dissemination of TRIZ across the organization as well as facilitates and assists innovative projects. Other employees can be trained in TRIZ to acquire basic skills and know how TRIZ can help them and cooperate with TRIZ professionals.

TRIZ: Top 12 questions (part 1)

2006-11-23T12:33:00.000+01:00

1. Should I learn TRIZ?

If you wish to increase both efficiency and effectiveness of your problem solving and idea generation capabilities, you will find learning TRIZ useful. TRIZ is a heuristic science which studies trends of system evolution, reveals patterns of inventive solutions, and attempts to extract principles and understand a process of inventive thinking. Knowledge of TRIZ helps considerably increase your innovative productivity. Interestingly, my first acquaintance with TRIZ was negative: back in 1986 I bought a book of Altshuller at the university bookstore, and after reading 30 pages put it away since I decided that it was all science fiction rather than real science. A year later I was working on a project and I was stuck – there seemed to be no solution available to my problem. I checked all the sources during 3 months – no solution was available and no one was capable of producing one. And then, by accident, I had visited a short 2-hours introductory evening TRIZ workshop at my university, and when I came back home I applied a technique I learned at the workshop and immediately found a solution to the problem I was working on! Needless to say, next day I hurried to the lab at the university which was experimenting with TRIZ. Three months without a solution and 2 hours to find it – this speaks for itself. Today when sustainable innovation becomes not just a competitive advantage but a matter for survival, learning TRIZ which provides “innovation on demand” becomes even more crucial than ever before.

2. Is TRIZ different from brainstorm?

Brainstorm is the oldest method of producing ideas by trials and errors. This is our natural way of thinking. It works well when a problem is relatively simple and we do not need to explore large knowledge area; therefore we do not need to make many trials to find a solution. But modern innovation demands thinking out of the box and exploiting outside knowledge more and more often. Many innovations, especially the most difficult ones require a huge number of trials and errors. As pointed by the Industrial Research Institute (Washington, DC), on average, one successful project requires 5.000 raw ideas to be generated. When Altshuller started to work on TRIZ, his primary goal was to overcome this major disadvantage of brainstorm. TRIZ provides navigation within the search space thus directing a problem solver towards a right segment with the highest chance to find a required solution.

3. I took one day training in TRIZ, but still, why can't I produce great inventions?

In fact, technology around us demonstrates that all great inventions were made without any TRIZ at all. But is it true? TRIZ is not just a number of techniques but a way of thinking, and TRIZ studied how inventions were produced – in some way, by possessing TRIZ skills we become capable of working just like strong inventors – and probably they used the same way of thinking as introduced by TRIZ. In my professional life (thanks to it I very often meet all types of creative and inventive persons) I only met few persons who were what I call “natural born inventors” and could successfully deal with virtually any complex problem due to vast and encyclopedic massive of knowledge they possessed. One day of TRIZ training can provide you with a good introductory overview of TRIZ and develop some very basic skills with its simple techniques, but I doubt one day is enough to absorb the TRIZ way of thinking and learn TRIZ at a proper level. TRIZ does not solve problems; the problems are solved by people; and you need practice and knowledge how to use the tool. In addition, there is no a single unique path from an inventive problem to its solution: all problems are different, some of them can be solved by simply rearranging existing knowledge, but some require outside knowledge, and some require complete problem reformulation to achieve desire results. TRIZ is complex since it helps attacking a large variety of different problems.
Minimum 40 hours of training is a necessary condition to start successfully applying TRIZ in most cases. Since TRIZ is not a just a set of tricks, it is not easy to learn and master; but this investment pays back.

4. Does TRIZ work in other areas besides technology?

Yes. TRIZ studies how to deal with a category of problems which we call “inventive”, and these “inventive” problems can arise everywhere, not necessarily in technology only: in business, in organizations, in family life. And it seems like our brain deals with all inventive problems similarly no matter where they come from. This makes the TRIZ way of thinking universal. Today we know extensions of TRIZ to business and management, arts, advertising, public relations, politics. However each new area of application requires TRIZ to speak with its own terms.

5. Are there successful examples of TRIZ applications?

As reported by Samsung Electronics, in the years 2002-2005 there were over 200 successful projects which used TRIZ to come up with innovative solutions which resulted in economic benefits of Euro 2 billion up to date. At Value Innovation Program Center “the goal is to train every engineer and researcher in the company in TRIZ think” (see Fortune, 75, 2005: "A Perpetual Crisis Machine" ). Most commercially successful product of Procter & Gamble, Crest Whitestrips was developed with TRIZ, generating $200 million in sales in the first year. TRIZ was used to win over competition in developing a new refueling tanker by Boeing. In fact, there are a lot of successful applications of TRIZ within different industries, although many companies often choose not to mention that they use TRIZ to maintain their competitive advantage. In 1984, Altshuller wrote in his report on TRIZ that there were thousands of successful applications of TRIZ in the former Soviet Union reported to him and his associates.

6. Does TRIZ replace creativity?

Absolutely not. Instead, TRIZ enhances creativity by introducing knowledge-based and systematic approach to understanding problems and defining the best strategies to search for a solution. In some cases TRIZ recommendations can directly lead to solutions, but it is not always the case. Most of TRIZ recommendations have generic and abstract nature, and creativity is definitely needed to translate these recommendations to specific ideas and solutions.

TRIZ Future 2006 is over

2006-10-12T02:23:00.000+02:00

The 5th ETRIA Conference TRIZ Future 2006 in Kortrijk, Belgium is over. In total, 120 participants from 27 countries (including Australia, Brasil, Japan, Korea, USA, Taiwan) visited the conference. If to express my impressions about the conference in one sentence: both many of the papers presented and Belgian culinary delights were definitely matching each other! I also enjoyed numerous discussions with many of the conference participants. But as a result I lost my voice and must recover it by Monday.

I wanted to comment on the conference but there is no need for that: Ellen Domb (The TRIZ Journal Editor) provided live coverage from the conference in her blog; so anyone interested can find rather detailed information about the conference stream there.

And some photos from the conference are available at: http://www.xtriz.com/img/TFC2006/

It was six years ago in 2000 when me, Pavel Livotov, Denis Cavalucci and Darrell Mann founded ETRIA. And now it is great to see that the Association is growing to a large global professional network of TRIZ users, developers, and researchers.

Can TRIZ solve any problem?

2006-10-07T19:47:00.000+02:00

Can TRIZ solve any problem? This is the question that I hear very often. Sometimes it is asked by people who were not experienced in TRIZ but ordered TRIZ services and were unhappy with the results; and complained that a TRIZ service supplier who worked with them had mentioned that TRIZ could solve any problem. And I believe these unhappy customers are right with their complaints. In fact, my answer to this question is pretty straightforward: TRIZ can not solve any problem since TRIZ does not solve problems. Problems are solved by people while TRIZ is a method which supports problem solving process by introducing rules and guidelines indicating how to transform a problem to a solution. Can a computer solve a difficult math problem? Not at all, unless it is equipped with a proper software package that can process input data and generate output data. In both cases - TRIZ and the computer are tools, or platforms which organize and support the process. Being "equipped" with TRIZ, a person solves a problem. But software itself cannot solve the math problem without hardware. Similarly, TRIZ is an ingredient of a more extended problem solving framework, which usually involves different knowledge sources - from an owner of the problem to external experts who possess knowledge necessary to interpret an abstract solution idea produced with the help of TRIZ.
The bottom line: with TRIZ, any problem which can be solved, can be solved. But not by TRIZ.

Google trends: search for TRIZ

2006-10-06T18:01:00.000+02:00

When trying to explore at www.google.com/trends who most actively searches for the word "TRIZ" at Google, the following results appeared:

No signs of Europe or US except Austria. Seems like Austrian TRIZ Zentrum does a good job to promote TRIZ. And one more chart - results for "innovation":

Singapore and Malaysia - most innovative places in the world?

TRIZ Case Studies Book: Call for Papers

2006-10-04T22:00:00.000+02:00

During recent discussions with numerous people, it became obviuos that we need a book presenting a collection of real TRIZ case studies. An independent editors team was formed (thanks Ellen Domb, Marco Aurelio de Carvalho, Hongyul Yoon for joining). The book will be available as a e-book for free. Therefore we invite all interested authors to submit their papers or express their intention to write a paper. The call for papers is available at http://www.xtriz.com/TRIZCaseStudiesCallForPapers.pdf

TRIZ and Business Week

2006-09-30T10:40:00.000+02:00

A new TRIZ reference in Businesss Week in the section "Innovation Tools and Trends to Watch" : http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/09/in_short/source/4.htm. As correctly pointed by Ellen Domb, "Bad news -- it (TRIZ) is only wildly complex if it is badly taught and it works very well for solving management problems, too".
Eearler, Business Week published another article on TRIZ: "The World According to TRIZ". Interestingly, most of the articles on TRIZ in mass media mention Altshuller Matrix only. It is not surprising since Altshuller Matrix is the most popular TRIZ tool; but there is more, much more in modern TRIZ.

Problems and Solutions: The Wise Owl story

2006-09-15T16:14:00.000+02:00

A nice story about problems, solutions... and consulting:

"Once upon a time, there was a forest. Suddenly, for whatever reasons, a population of wolves started to grow, and this was really bad for rabbits who were eaten by the wolves more and more. So the rabbits decided to ask the wisest creature in the forest, the Owl, what to do. They came to the Owl, and the Owl said: “Now, it is easy. You rabbits have to become hedgehogs. The wolves do not like hedgehogs. So you will be safe”.
The rabbits liked the advice! Who does not like when your problem is solved? But the next day they came back to the Owl. “Listen, the wisest Owl, but… how do we become hedgehogs?”. And the Owl said: “I am sorry, this question is beyond my scope, I only do strategic advice. I've solved your problem, just as you asked, and now it is up to you how you implement my solution!”.

"Why Smart Companies...." and innovation

2006-09-15T15:20:00.000+02:00

Interesting article in Guy Kawasaki's blog: "Why Smart Companies Do Dumb Things". Are the same reasons valid for slowing down innovation?

"Dutch" TRIZ: Our article in The TRIZ Journal

2006-09-15T15:10:00.000+02:00

The article written by me together with Jacques Stevens of Stevens Ide Partners about our "Dutch" experience with TRIZ (with several case stidues) appeared in the September issue of the TRIZ Journal:
http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/2006/09/07.pdf

TRIZ: a meta-theory of creative innovation?

2006-09-15T13:10:00.000+02:00

If a role of TRIZ has to be defined in a single sentence, TRIZ helps provide creative phases of innovation with knowledge-based systematic support. While most of the basic TRIZ principles were drawn from the studies of technological inventions, the ways we solve problems and generate ideas are rather similar in virtually every area. For instance, TRIZ postulates that one of the major driving forces of technology evolution is resolution of contradictions (which was known as a philosophical concept long before TRIZ, but TRIZ developed this concept further within the area of technological innovation). The same idea appears to be true for many other domains: social, political, business, economic. As an example, an old and seemingly solid business model will not survive when its business environment changes because the model starts facing contradictions; and in many cases the model has to be radically changed since compromising and optimizing will only help to incrementally improve the model.
What is more important about TRIZ, that it has identified strategies and patterns for resolving contradictions: both very generic like resolving contradictions in time, space, etc. and more specific, like "Consider doing the opposite action instead of an intended one". The high degree of abstraction makes major discoveries and principles of TRIZ domain-independent with respect to creative problem solving and systems evolution. To my opinion, even current system of generic principles and patterns of TRIZ can be applied to all artificially created systems that are created to deliver a certain value. Today we know that TRIZ is used in business, software architectures, marketing and advertisement, pedagogy. But more research is needed to establish a well-systematized ground for cross-domain TRIZ applications, both at generic meta-level and domain-specific levels.

TRIZ Future 2006 Conference

2006-09-08T19:53:00.000+02:00

A program of ETRIA TRIZ Future 2006 Conference has just been published:

http://www.triz.be/pdf/program.pdf

The conference will be held in Kortrijk, Belgium, October 9-11, 2006. With 49 presentations and 4 keynotes it promises to be a very interesting event. I will be presenting TRIZ for business problem solving case and methodology on the first conference day right after the conference opening.

xTRIZ: Welcome to Creative Innovation

2006-09-08T17:28:00.000+02:00

About 7 years ago, I wrote a short article "Four Views on TRIZ" to answer the question which I was asked too often: "and yet, what exactly TRIZ is?" I guess, this question is still asked today and will be asked many times in future.

Despite the fact that TRIZ originated more than 50 years ago, it is still very young: at both theoretical and practical sides. Still, there are many ongoing debates about usefullness of TRIZ. To me personally TRIZ has been useful, and I know many other people who find it useful as well. Hence it is not a question if TRIZ is useful to everybody. Can something be useful to everybody without exception? Perhaps, if that something covers our most basic needs and there is no other alternative. Like a specific medicine. A need to innovate is not among basic human needs, therefore the answer would be "no, not everyone needs TRIZ." TRIZ is for those who are eager to recognize, understand and solve problems, find best and ideal solutions, and want to innovate. Probably, this list is not on everyone's agenda.

A main difficulty with accepting and properly positioning TRIZ in our minds is that TRIZ is a cross-disciplinary study. It operates across the borders of philosophy, system theory, engineering sciences, physics, technology, sociology, psychology. So many find it difficult to learn and accept. But is there an easy way? In my professional career I had a chance to meet a lot of great creative thinkers, problem solvers and inventors; and noticed one common feature among them. These people used to be hungry for knowledge; and not just knowledge in their field, but in many different fields. I wonder if there is a correlation between a capability of a person to generate innovative ideas and a size and diversity of his/her library.

TRIZ is also difficult because it is mainly a "thinking" method rather than a toolbox or a database of scientifc effects. TRIZ provides a meta-theory of guiding our mind through the forest of knowledge to use this knowledge in order to solve problems and generate new ideas. TRIZ also is a parallel process: by solving a problem with TRIZ we usually apply several different TRIZ concepts and lines of reasoning at the same time. That's why attempts to create clear step-by-step TRIZ algorithms have not been very successful so far.

Although today there are many "incarnations" of TRIZ, like I-TRIZ, CreaTRIZ, TRIZ+, (and now welcome to xTRIZ, of course), all these versions have been emerging to extend, improve and make TRIZ easier to learn and more effective to apply. I am sure one day we will have clear and concise TRIZ.

So what is xTRIZ and why? "x" stands for eXtended TRIZ. I believe TRIZ should not be positioned as a standalone tool (or whatever we name it). Just like modern innovation requires more and more resources, TRIZ can be enriched with new techniques and tools with complement TRIZ and the entire process of creative innovation. Therefore xTRIZ focuses on using and developing new techniques which help dealing with problems and producing innovative solutions. In addition, xTRIZ will explore how modern technology can help with innovation: emerging ICT solutions, social software, web 2.0, collaborative intelligence, and so forth.

So with starting this blog I intend to be more personal than in articles or books. I hope this will be a platform for thinking and new ideas. And it will be not limited to TRIZ: everything that helps innovation, and especially new systematic approaches, methods, techniques, and tools for creativity and innovation will be discussed here as well.